Live Blogging an Energy CEO's Luncheon at National Press Club

I'm live at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, where Massey Energy CEO and chairman Don Blankenship is speaking in a special press luncheon today. Outside are protestors who are calling Mr. Blankenship to task for his oversight of the non-union company whose safety law violations -- over 100 citations from the U.S.Mine Safety and Health Administration this year alone -- led to a fatal explosion this year that took 29 lives and whose mountaintop removal mining practices have racked up thousands of Clean Water Act violations. For more info on those environmental violations, see my blog yesterday, and for more information on how mountaintop removal mining is devastating the environment all across Appalachia, contaminating water supplies, sickening people, and tearing apart communities, see our campaign page on our work to Stop Mountaintop Removal Mining. Finally, for some more background on just how Mr. Blankenship became such a notorious national figure, read this New York Times story on his politics in West Virginia.

Blankenship will take to the microphone in just a few minutes, and I'll keep you posted and give you the highlights as they go down.

Archived version of live tweets:

judgethis: #BlankTalk is over, for now anyway. Lots still to say: stay tuned to @Earthjustice blog for final thoughts and reflections
Thursday, July 22, 2010 11:23 AM

judgethis: Blankenship against enviro regulations but then says we need to mine more coal here bc china doesn't have the same enviro regs. #BlankTalk
Thursday, July 22, 2010 11:12 AM

judgethis: Why should MTR continue despite no reclamation of sites? "As far as I can see, NYC and DC have been developed w no plans to reclaim them"
Thursday, July 22, 2010 10:50 AM

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